Friday, August 10, 2012

Gary Godleske

It was at approximately 9 a.m. on Friday, January 7, 1983 that an
Estacada, Oregon area resident heard what sounded like several
gun­shots coming from the vicinity of a mo­bile home situated near the
entrance to McIver State Park. However, because the incident was not
unusual in this rural area of northeast Clackamas County, due to the
fact that many residents owned firearms and regularly discharged them
taking practice shots, the incident was not reported to authorities.
It was an hour and a half later that authorities were tipped off by a
con­cerned relative of Marleen Godleske, 32, resident of the mobile
home, who told the Clackamas County sheriff’s department’s emergency
dispatch center in Oregon City that Marleen may have been the victim of a
homicide earlier that morning. The homicide division was notified and
deputies were dispatched to the Estacada area location to investigate,
to determine whether a homicide had in fact been committed. It was the
first stage of an exciting investigation that would ultimately find one
woman dead, and leave two deputies wounded, one seriously, in the line
of duty.
When the first deputies arrived at the rural location of the mobile
home they cautiously observed their surroundings to make certain that
the scene was safe. There were many places for a gunman to hide, and the
last thing these deputies wanted to do was walk into the line of any
gunfire. However, after several mi­nutes, the deputies decided there was
no one besides themselves at the site and they proceeded cautiously
onto the prop­erty.
When the deputies approached the front entrance to the mobile home
they found, much to their surprise, a dead German shepherd dog lying on
the small porch. The animal had been shot in the head.
Once inside the mobile home, it didn’t take the deputies long to find
the body of a woman whom they believed to be the resident, Marleen
Godleske. She was quite dead and, judging from the wounds, had been the
victim of multiple gunshots inflicted about the head and chest. The
deputies radioed their grim findings back to headquarters.
A short time later, emergency vehi­cles from Clackamas County and the
state crime labs converged on the scene. Among the officials who
arrived were Clackamas County Chief Criminal De­puty J. Ross Cravens,
Detective Dale Frazell, Sgt. Jack Lowery, Deputy Doug Shackelford,
Clackamas County Deputy Medical Examiner George Coleman, Clackamas
County Deputy District Attorney John Mahr, and Tom Kusturin, an
investigator from the Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office.
The investigators immediately deter­mined the dimensions of the crime
scene and sealed it off, keeping anxious members of the local press
outside the bound­aries. Only those investigators and de­puties
immediately involved in the case were allowed inside the police lines, a
precaution taken at the scene of every crime to avoid contaminating
the site, and they quickly, but carefully, began their search for
evidence, working from the outer perimeters of the crime site in toward
the body.
As the investigators made their way toward the bedroom of the mobile
home, where the victim’s body was found, they noted evidence and sealed
it in appropri­ate containers, refusing to disclose at this point,
just what that evidence was. It would later be revealed that detectives
were looking for a bloody rock or some other instrument they believed
had play­ed a part in the slaying of Marleen God­leske. It was not
revealed, however, if such evidence was found. Additional evi­dence,
according to a source, would indicate that someone, most likely the
per­petrator of the shooting, had made pre­parations to burn the mobile
home. De­tectives would not elaborate on that point.
The bedroom of the mobile home was a mess. There were blood spatters
every­where, some caused by a being the vic­tim sustained prior to
being shot, and some from the shots themselves.
Blood samples and trace evidence were collected from the victim’s
body as well as areas adjacent to the body and other rooms of the home.
Photos were taken of the victim’s body from several angles, making sure
not a single detail was missed. Photos were also taken of every room
of the home, as well as out­side. As a matter of routine, latent prints
were obtained from various objects in­side the mobile home, just in
case they could later be useful.

Clackamas County Deputy Medical Examiner George Coleman examined the
victim’s body and noted that it appeared the victim sustained a
beating, and that she had been shot twice in the head, once in the chin
and once in the torso or chest area of the body. The corp­se was then
prepared for transport to the Multnomah County Morgue, where a thorough
autopsy would be conducted as soon as possible by Deputy Chief
Medic­al Examiner Dr. Larry Lewman.
Meanwhile, investigators found, while searching outside the trailer,
another dog that had been shot to death. This one, a mixed breed, was
found lying inside a doghouse at the rear of the mobile home, and its
discovery only served to confuse the already baffled investigators more
as to why the woman and dogs had been killed. A motive for the woman’s
death had not yet been established, and authorities had not yet begun
to form theories regarding the case.
It was at approximately 12:30 p.m. when Sheriff’s Deputy Shackelford
noticed a bright red Volkswagen Rabbit approaching the Godleske mobile
home. When he noticed that the driver of the car was brandishing a
firearm, Shackelford called out to warn his fellow officers of the
impending danger.
At that point the driver of the car wild­ly opened fire with his
weapon, firing at anything and everything in his view, in­cluding the
police officers. As Sgt. Jack Lowery turned to see what the shooting was
about, he took a shot in the stomach and went down. In those same
seconds, Detective Dale Frazell, alongside Low­ery, was hit in the leg.
The gunfire con­tinued as the driver of the Volkswagen fled the scene,
turning left from South Jubb Road onto South Springwater Road. Deputy
Shackelford, by this time, had climbed into his car and was in hot
pursuit of the suspect.
Into the midst of all this dangerous activity came another car carrying a news reporter and a photographer for the Oregonian,
heading towards the fleeing suspect. The suspect held his weapon out
the window of his moving car and opened fire on the reporter as he
passed, striking their car with at least one of his bullets. Narrowly
escaping injury, the reporter and photographer eventually followed the
action.
By this time several police units were in hot pursuit of the fleeing
suspect in a chase that involved speeds upward of 85 miles per hour on
South Springwater Road. A police helicopter had been cal­led in, and
would soon be aiding the road units in the chase.
As the chase continued, several motorists had been forced off the
road by the suspect’s swerving car, and within minutes police units had
lost sight of the red vehicle. However, the approaching helicopter
enabled the pilots to see that the suspect had lost control of his car,
subsequently running it off the road and flipping it over in a nearby
field. The helicopter pilot directed deputies to the scene of the crash,
informing them that no one was seen fleeing the area and that there
were no signs of movement in or near the crashed vehicle. Just the same,
deputies approached the car with ex­treme caution, their weapons drawn
and aimed at the suspect’s car.
As the deputies approached the car they could see that the driver had
sus­tained head injuries as a result of the crash. Even though the
driver had been disabled, the deputies took no chances and held shotguns
on the suspect in case he made a move for one of his weapons.
Eventually, several men turned the car right side up, and the suspect
was re­moved from the wreck. He was identified as 34-year-old Gary Ray
Godleske, hus­band of the homicide victim.
Several loaded weapons were seized from Godleske’s crashed vehicle,
and sheriff’s deputies immediately removed the ammunition and took that
and the weapons as evidence. Paramedics quick­ly arrived on the scene
and began treating Godleske’s head wounds, after which he was loaded
into a heavily guarded ambu­lance and guarded, after which he was loaded
into a heavily guarded ambulance and taken to Willamette Falls
Community Hospital in Oregon City for addition­al treatment.

While Godleske was being attended to by paramedics, additional
medical per­sonnel concentrated on the wounds sus­tained by Sgt. Lowery
and Detective Frazell. Frazell, struck in the leg, was taken to
Willamette Falls Community Hospital, while the more seriously in­jured
Lowery was flown by Life Flight helicopter to Emanuel Hospital’s
inten­sive care unit. Lowery, father of six chil­dren, underwent
emergency surgery im­mediately upon his arrival at the hos­pital.
Meanwhile, additional sheriff’s de­partment personnel remained at the
rural Estacada mobile home where Marleen Godleske had been killed, and
continued in their search for additional evidence. Still other
deputies went door-to-door throughout the area probing for informa­tion
about the Godleske family which, as it turned out, proved quite
interesting.
Gary Godleske, a former U.S. Postal Service employee, had been out of
work for quite some time and relied on his wife for support. He
purportedly left the Post­al Service “because he couldn’t get along with
people,” and many area residents painted a picture of Godleske as a
gun enthusiast who “was not to be fooled with,” and was known to fire
his guns at random any time of the day or night. Neighbors told the
cops that Godleske was not a sociable person and that he sometimes,
quite often in fact, acted un­predictably.
“We were warned that the people who lived here before us couldn’t get
along with him (Godleske),” said one neigh­bor, who also told the
deputies that God­leske had trained his German Shepherd into “a real
attack dog. You couldn’t get near their yard.”
Another neighbor told the deputies that Godleske and his wife Marleen
had noisy fights quite often, and could be heard screaming at each
other. “We’d just look at each other and say, ‘There they go screaming
again.’ “Still yet another neighbor referred to Godleske as a Vietnam
veteran and said, “I often wondered about Vietnam stress syn­drome or
something like that.”
“People knew to stay away from him,” said the same neighbor. “I don’t
think anyone really befriended him.” The neighbor confirmed earlier
reports that Godleske was a gun buff, and said that he’d been asked by
Godleske on several occasions to go hunting with him. “But I didn’t go
because I was working and just didn’t have the time. I never really had a
problem with him. He never seemed crazy to me, but I never felt easy
around him.”
“I was concerned about how freely he shot his guns around here,” said
one of the neighbors. “On New Year’s Eve he came out and shot it up
just crazy, at least ten rounds.” The neighbor said that Godleske
compelled his 11-year-old son to participate in sports games with him.
“He would drill him (the boy) and scream at him if he didn’t run fast
enough or catch the ball,” the neighbor said, adding that the
11-year-old never went out of his yard. “He had no friends and never
went any place or had anyone over.” Police learned that on the day of
the shootings, the young boy had been taken out of school by his father
and left with close relatives. The boy hadn’t wit­nessed the crime.
According to the area resident who said he’d heard what sounded like
sever­al gunshots coming from the Godleske mobile home around 9:00 that
morning, he didn’t report it because it didn’t seem at all unusual for
the sounds of gunfire to be coming from the Godleske property. “I
didn’t think it too strange,” .said the neighbor. “It could have been
anything. You just don’t get up and run out every time he shoots his
gun,” said another neighbor.
In the meantime, Dr. Larry Lewman performed the autopsy on Marleen
God­leske and concluded that she died from four gunshot wounds from a
weapon “of approximately .38-caliber.” She had been shot three times in
the head and once in the chest. “Any of the three were fatal,” said Dr.
Lewman, referring to two bullets in her head which had pene­trated the
victim’s brain and one bullet to the chest which “passed through both
lungs and severed the aorta.” The fourth bullet wound was “superficial
to the chin.”

Meanwhile, according to police, Gary Godleske made a daring escape
attempt from Willamette Falls Community Hos­pital. According to
reports, Godleske struggled with a deputy who had been guarding him and
fled through a hospital emergency door. But the escape was short-lived
because, when he exited through the emergency door, Godleske ran
straight into a moving pickup truck. Fortunately for him, the impact
only caused cuts and bruises. He was taken back into custody without a
struggle, and added security precautions were taken just in case he
tried another escape.
According to Lt. Lonnie Ryan, public information officer for the
Clackamas County Sheriff’s Department, Godleske was charged the next day
with one count of murder and five counts of attempted murder.
Additional charges were being considered, and could be filed at a later
time. Although detectives had begun to zero in on Godleske as their
chief suspect while investigating at the mobile home, they hadn’t formed
any real opinions un­til Godleske returned and opened fire on them.
Police were reluctant to release many details surrounding the case, but
did state that Godleske had told a close relative that his wife was
dead, which prompted the cops to center their sights on him as the
likely perpetrator.
Out of intensive care following surgery for the bullet wound to the
sto­mach, Sgt. Jack Lowery was listed as having improved to fair
condition. He was allowed interviews with reporters, and told his side
of the story of the shoot­ing incident at the mobile home. It should be
noted that Lowery has been a police officer since 1959 and has been
with the Clackamas County sheriff’s office since 1967 and, according to
him, the last time a Clackamas County deputy was shot in the line of
duty was in 1906.
“I remember an officer yelling and then turning and seeing the
suspect (Godleske),” said Lowery as he recalled the shooting spree. “I
don’t remember whether I saw any flash from the gunfire, but I felt like
I was getting hit in the stomach, I supposed like a horse would kick
you. Then I went down. I saw De­tective Frazell go down, and I asked if
he got hit. He asked me where I got hit, and I said, ‘Right in the
stomach.’ “
“I tried to move my legs and toes,” continued Lowery, “just to make
sure everything was still working, and then I waited for help to get
there.” Lowery said Deputy Shackelford saved his life, by warning of the
approaching gunman. “If he hadn’t yelled, I wouldn’t have turned, and I
probably would have got it right through the side.” Lowery also said
that the experience had not discouraged him about his work. “I’m a
street cop, and I have been for twenty three years. This is an isolated
case. I’ve gone through twenty three years without it ever happening.
If I go another twenty three, I probably will have retired first. This
hap­pens to officers all over the United States every day. A lot of
them aren’t so lucky.”
During the emergency surgery, doc­tors removed much of his lower
intestine. “They said I could do without that,” he said jokingly.
The investigation into the murder of Marleen Godleske continued when
De­tective Terry Schaffer, with the sheriff’s department, went to
Willamette Falls Community Hospital to interrogate Gary Godleske.
According to Schaffer, the last thing Godleske told him he remembered
before the automobile accident was that he’d been bowling the night
before.
“He said that he had been told that his wife was in a different
hospital,” said Schaffer. “He said why wouldn’t any­body tell him what
was going on. In the next breath, he switched to another topic. He said
he was having bad dreams about being in Korea.
“He referred to his wife in the past tense and never used her name,”
con­tinued Schaffer. “He said he loved her and she loved him and he
would never hurt her.” The detective said that God­leske then began
“thrashing around, be­came very tense.” Schaffer said God­leske told him
that his wife, Marleen, was planning to leave him, and that she had so
told their 11-year-old boy. “He told her he didn’t want her to go,”
said Schaffer. “Then he said again, ‘I’d never hurt her.’ Then, quote,
‘I’d never kill her.’ end quote,” said Schaffer.

According to detectives, a note was later found inside Godleske’s
crashed car. Apparently it was a suicide note which read: “I know this
is dumb, but Marleen and I are at peace now.” The note would be used as
evidence.
All in all, Godleske was charged with the murder of his wife Marleen,
also with five counts of attempted murder stemming from the gunshots
he alleged­ly fired that injured Sgt. Lowery and Detective Frazell, and
the shots fired at Deputy Shackelford, and the Oregonian
reporter and photographer. An addition­al charge of second-degree
escape was filed due to his alleged attempt to flee police custody at
Willamette Falls Com­munity Hospital. Godleske pleaded in­nocent to all
the charges, and requested that the court appoint him an attorney.
Mike Bailey and Marc Sussman of the Metropolitan Public Defender’s
Office were named as defense counsel.
Before Godleske’s trial could get under way, however, it was pointed
out by Clackamas County District Attorney James O’Leary that his office
his could not prosecute the case due to a conflict of interest and, as
a result, the prosecution would be handled by- Paul Silver and Helen
Smith of the Multnomah County district attorney’s office. O’Leary
ex­plained that the conflict of interest arose because Chief Criminal
Deputy J. Ross Cravens, Deputy District Attorney John Mahr and
Investigator Tom Kusturin, all of whom were associated with the
Clack­amas County district attorney’s office, were present when Sgt.
Lowery and De­tective Frazell were shot and would like­ly be witnesses
for the prosecution at Godleske’s trial.
“This sort of thing is not out of the ordinary,” said O’Leary.
“Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington Counties and, to some degree,
Marion County, have historically assisted each other when conflict cases
arise.”
Meanwhile, motions submitted by Godleske’s attorneys which indicated
they would present a defense of “mental defect or disease,” Oregon’s
equivalent to an insanity defense, and “extreme mental or emotional
disturbance.” By filing the motions, Bailey and Sussman made it known
that their defense of God­leske would be relying “on mental dis­ease or
defect which excludes (the defen­dant’s) responsibility for criminal
con­duct” regarding his wife’s death and the wounding of the sheriff’s
deputies.
On Monday, July 18, Gary Ray God­leske went on trial in the packed
cour­troom of Clackamas County Circuit Court Judge Howard Blanding.
God­leske waived his right to a jury trial, preferring to let the judge
decide the case against him.
It was a marriage gone bad,” said Helen Smith, Multnomah County
depu­ty district attorney, in her opening state­ments. “He is a man who
refused to deal with the breakdown of his marriage. He planned to kill
his wife.” Smith con­tended that Godleske shot his wife at their mobile
home near Estacada, drove to his son’s school and took the boy out of
classes and then went to the home of a close relative. Smith said that
Godleske told his relative that he had “shot Mar­leen, “and was heading
for the hills,” leaving his son with his relatives “fore­ver.” Smith
told the judge that Godleske “made a conscious decision to kill his
wife” after she informed him of her in­tent to leave him.
Smith told the judge that Godleske’s relative called the sheriff’s
office and reported that a possible homicide had been committed at the
Godleske mobile home. When the authorities arrived, they found Marleen
Godleske dead in the couple’s blood-spattered bedroom “with two gunshot
wounds in the head, one in the chin and another in her torso,” said
Smith. Smith recounted the rest of the events of that fateful day for
the judge, stating that Godleske returned home at 12:30 p.m. and opened
fire upon the officers investigating the homicide, “then took off down
the road” with de­puties in pursuit. After running several cars off the
road, said Smith, and firing shots at a newspaper reporter and
photo­grapher, he ran his car off the road and was captured. At the time
of his arrest five weapons were found inside his car — two rifles, one
shotgun, an automatic pistol and a revolver. “The issue is the
defendant’s intent,” said Prosecutor Smith.
“Rather than send him to the Oregon State Penitentiary,” said defense
attor­ney Bailey, “it’s our position he should be sent to the Oregon
State Hospital and be treated there until he is no longer a danger to
himself or to others.”
The defense attorney said that psychiatric testimony would be
presented, and that he would defer his opening statement until after the
prosecution completed its case against his client.Sgt. Lowery,
Detective Frazell and Deputy Shackelford testified for the
pro­secution, using charts and diagrams to describe the events that
occurred at the Godleske mobile home on January 7, 1983.
“I was still taking that whole picture in when I felt the impact,”
said Sgt. Lowery, who also described finding Marleen Godleske’s
bullet-riddled body in the bedroom of the mobile home. “I don’t recall
the sound of the weapon,” he said as he described how he, Frazell and
Shackelford were shot at from the moving vehicle Godleske was driving.
“I knew I’d been hit good. My body was instantly numb on the right
side,” said Lowery. Lowery also testified that a rela­tive of Godleske
arrived at the scene while officials were investigating the homicide.
“Did he do what he said he did?” Lowery said the relative asked him. “I
said, ‘Yes. It appears he did.’ “
Deputy Shackelford testified that he fired two shots at the red
Volkswagen Rabbit that was fleeing the scene after the shooting of Sgt.
Lowery and Detective Frazell, and that he pursued it at speeds up to 85
mph until it flipped on its side in the open field near the Logan
area. Frazell, who had been wounded in one of his legs, accompanied
Shackelford in the chase, and both deputies identified Godleske as the
person they found injured in the over­turned Volkswagen.
Clackamas County Sheriff’s Deputy Edward J. Claridge took the stand
and testified that he accompanied Godleske in the ambulance that took
the suspect to the Oregon City hospital. Claridge said he was ready to
take a “dying declara­tion” in the event that it appeared that Godleske
would die from the injuries he had sustained when he wrecked his car.
“He stated, ‘Let me die, let me die,’ and then he would groan some
more,” Claridge testified. ” ‘Where am I? Why did I wreck my car? Where
is my son? Where is my wife?’ ” Claridge quoted Godleske as having said
repeatedly dur­ing the trip to the hospital.
The defense brought out the fact that Godleske’s blood alcohol level
was .14 when he was taken into custody and treated at the hospital for
his wounds, which made the defendant legally intoxicated due to a new
Oregon law that sets .08 as the level at which a person is considered
too intoxicated to be operating a motor vehicle. As a foreshadow to
their psychiatric defense, attorneys for the de­fendant brought out the
fact that God­leske had placed suicide notes in his car.
One of Godleske’s relatives testified that he had advised Godleske
for at least 10 years to leave his wife Marleen be­cause she “was
runnin’ around” and pur­portedly had a drinking problem. The relative
also stated that Godleske had brought his son to their house the day of
the slaying, and told his relatives that he was going to leave his son
with them forever.
“I’m going to leave the boy here,’ ” the relative quoted Godleske as
having said. “And I said, ‘How come?’ He said, ‘Because Marleen drives
me crazy and I shot her.’ I said, ‘You ought to turn yourself in to the
law.’ He said, ‘I’m going into the hills. I’m not going to jail,’ ”
the relative testified.
Another relative testified that “just about everybody in Estacada”
knew ab­out the extramarital affair Marleen was having, except for Gary
Godleske. The relative also told about the defendant’s possessiveness
towards his wife, that “the only person Gary confided in was Marleen
that I know of. Sometimes we even thought Marleen was a possession
because he was so protective of her.”
According to Lt. Lonnie Ryan, public information officer for the
Clackamas County Sheriff’s Department, Godleske was charged the next day
with one count of murder and five counts of attempted murder.
Additional charges were being considered, and could be filed at a later
time. Although detectives had begun to zero in on Godleske as their
chief suspect while investigating at the mobile home, they hadn’t formed
any real opinions un­til Godleske returned and opened fire on them.
Police were reluctant to release many details surrounding the case, but
did state that Godleske had told a close relative that his wife was
dead, which prompted the cops to center their sights on him as the
likely perpetrator.

Out of intensive care following surgery for the bullet wound to the
sto­mach, Sgt. Jack Lowery was listed as having improved to fair
condition. He was allowed interviews with reporters, and told his side
of the story of the shoot­ing incident at the mobile home. It should be
noted that Lowery has been a police officer since 1959 and has been
with the Clackamas County sheriff’s office since 1967 and, according to
him, the last time a Clackamas County deputy was shot in the line of
duty was in 1906.
“I remember an officer yelling and then turning and seeing the
suspect (Godleske),” said Lowery as he recalled the shooting spree. “I
don’t remember whether I saw any flash from the gunfire, but I felt like
I was getting hit in the stomach, I supposed like a horse would kick
you. Then I went down. I saw De­tective Frazell go down, and I asked if
he got hit. He asked me where I got hit, and I said, ‘Right in the
stomach.’ “
“I tried to move my legs and toes,” continued Lowery, “just to make
sure everything was still working, and then I waited for help to get
there.” Lowery said Deputy Shackelford saved his life, by warning of the
approaching gunman. “If he hadn’t yelled, I wouldn’t have turned, and I
probably would have got it right through the side.” Lowery also said
that the experience had not discouraged him about his work. “I’m a
street cop, and I have been for twenty three years. This is an isolated
case. I’ve gone through twenty three years without it ever happening.
If I go another twenty three, I probably will have retired first. This
hap­pens to officers all over the United States every day. A lot of
them aren’t so lucky.”
During the emergency surgery, doc­tors removed much of his lower
intestine. “They said I could do without that,” he said jokingly.
The investigation into the murder of Marleen Godleske continued when
De­tective Terry Schaffer, with the sheriff’s department, went to
Willamette Falls Community Hospital to interrogate Gary Godleske.
According to Schaffer, the last thing Godleske told him he remembered
before the automobile accident was that he’d been bowling the night
before.
“He said that he had been told that his wife was in a different
hospital,” said Schaffer. “He said why wouldn’t any­body tell him what
was going on. In the next breath, he switched to another topic. He said
he was having bad dreams about being in Korea.
“He referred to his wife in the past tense and never used her name,”
con­tinued Schaffer. “He said he loved her and she loved him and he
would never hurt her.” The detective said that God­leske then began
“thrashing around, be­came very tense.” Schaffer said God­leske told him
that his wife, Marleen, was planning to leave him, and that she had so
told their 11-year-old boy. “He told her he didn’t want her to go,”
said Schaffer. “Then he said again, ‘I’d never hurt her.’ Then, quote,
‘I’d never kill her.’ end quote,” said Schaffer.
According to detectives, a note was later found inside Godleske’s
crashed car. Apparently it was a suicide note which read: “I know this
is dumb, but Marleen and I are at peace now.” The note would be used as
evidence.
All in all, Godleske was charged with the murder of his wife Marleen,
also with five counts of attempted murder stemming from the gunshots
he alleged­ly fired that injured Sgt. Lowery and Detective Frazell, and
the shots fired at Deputy Shackelford, and the Oregonian
reporter and photographer. An addition­al charge of second-degree
escape was filed due to his alleged attempt to flee police custody at
Willamette Falls Com­munity Hospital. Godleske pleaded in­nocent to all
the charges, and requested that the court appoint him an attorney.
Mike Bailey and Marc Sussman of the Metropolitan Public Defender’s
Office were named as defense counsel.
Before Godleske’s trial could get under way, however, it was pointed
out by Clackamas County District Attorney James O’Leary that his office
his could not prosecute the case due to a conflict of interest and, as
a result, the prosecution would be handled by- Paul Silver and Helen
Smith of the Multnomah County district attorney’s office. O’Leary
ex­plained that the conflict of interest arose because Chief Criminal
Deputy J. Ross Cravens, Deputy District Attorney John Mahr and
Investigator Tom Kusturin, all of whom were associated with the
Clack­amas County district attorney’s office, were present when Sgt.
Lowery and De­tective Frazell were shot and would like­ly be witnesses
for the prosecution at Godleske’s trial.
“This sort of thing is not out of the ordinary,” said O’Leary.
“Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington Counties and, to some degree,
Marion County, have historically assisted each other when conflict cases
arise.”

Meanwhile, motions submitted by Godleske’s attorneys which indicated
they would present a defense of “mental defect or disease,” Oregon’s
equivalent to an insanity defense, and “extreme mental or emotional
disturbance.” By filing the motions, Bailey and Sussman made it known
that their defense of God­leske would be relying “on mental dis­ease or
defect which excludes (the defen­dant’s) responsibility for criminal
con­duct” regarding his wife’s death and the wounding of the sheriff’s
deputies.
On Monday, July 18, Gary Ray God­leske went on trial in the packed
cour­troom of Clackamas County Circuit Court Judge Howard Blanding.
God­leske waived his right to a jury trial, preferring to let the judge
decide the case against him.
It was a marriage gone bad,” said Helen Smith, Multnomah County
depu­ty district attorney, in her opening state­ments. “He is a man who
refused to deal with the breakdown of his marriage. He planned to kill
his wife.” Smith con­tended that Godleske shot his wife at their mobile
home near Estacada, drove to his son’s school and took the boy out of
classes and then went to the home of a close relative. Smith said that
Godleske told his relative that he had “shot Mar­leen, “and was heading
for the hills,” leaving his son with his relatives “fore­ver.” Smith
told the judge that Godleske “made a conscious decision to kill his
wife” after she informed him of her in­tent to leave him.
Smith told the judge that Godleske’s relative called the sheriff’s
office and reported that a possible homicide had been committed at the
Godleske mobile home. When the authorities arrived, they found Marleen
Godleske dead in the couple’s blood-spattered bedroom “with two gunshot
wounds in the head, one in the chin and another in her torso,” said
Smith. Smith recounted the rest of the events of that fateful day for
the judge, stating that Godleske returned home at 12:30 p.m. and opened
fire upon the officers investigating the homicide, “then took off down
the road” with de­puties in pursuit. After running several cars off the
road, said Smith, and firing shots at a newspaper reporter and
photo­grapher, he ran his car off the road and was captured. At the time
of his arrest five weapons were found inside his car — two rifles, one
shotgun, an automatic pistol and a revolver. “The issue is the
defendant’s intent,” said Prosecutor Smith.
“Rather than send him to the Oregon State Penitentiary,” said defense
attor­ney Bailey, “it’s our position he should be sent to the Oregon
State Hospital and be treated there until he is no longer a danger to
himself or to others.” The defense attorney said that psychiatric
testimony would be presented, and that he would defer his opening
statement until after the prosecution completed its case against his
client.
Sgt. Lowery, Detective Frazell and Deputy Shackelford testified for
the pro­secution, using charts and diagrams to describe the events that
occurred at the Godleske mobile home on January 7, 1983.
“I was still taking that whole picture in when I felt the impact,”
said Sgt. Lowery, who also described finding Marleen Godleske’s
bullet-riddled body in the bedroom of the mobile home. “I don’t recall
the sound of the weapon,” he said as he described how he, Frazell and
Shackelford were shot at from the moving vehicle Godleske was driving.
“I knew I’d been hit good. My body was instantly numb on the right
side,” said Lowery. Lowery also testified that a rela­tive of Godleske
arrived at the scene while officials were investigating the homicide.
“Did he do what he said he did?” Lowery said the relative asked him. “I
said, ‘Yes. It appears he did.’ “
Deputy Shackelford testified that he fired two shots at the red
Volkswagen Rabbit that was fleeing the scene after the shooting of Sgt.
Lowery and Detective Frazell, and that he pursued it at speeds up to 85
mph until it flipped on its side in the open field near the Logan
area. Frazell, who had been wounded in one of his legs, accompanied
Shackelford in the chase, and both deputies identified Godleske as the
person they found injured in the over­turned Volkswagen.
Clackamas County Sheriff’s Deputy Edward J. Claridge took the stand
and testified that he accompanied Godleske in the ambulance that took
the suspect to the Oregon City hospital. Claridge said he was ready to
take a “dying declara­tion” in the event that it appeared that Godleske
would die from the injuries he had sustained when he wrecked his car.
“He stated, ‘Let me die, let me die,’ and then he would groan some
more,” Claridge testified. ” ‘Where am I? Why did I wreck my car? Where
is my son? Where is my wife?’ ” Claridge quoted Godleske as having said
repeatedly dur­ing the trip to the hospital.
The defense brought out the fact that Godleske’s blood alcohol level
was .14 when he was taken into custody and treated at the hospital for
his wounds, which made the defendant legally intoxicated due to a new
Oregon law that sets .08 as the level at which a person is considered
too intoxicated to be operating a motor vehicle. As a foreshadow to
their psychiatric defense, attorneys for the de­fendant brought out the
fact that God­leske had placed suicide notes in his car.
One of Godleske’s relatives testified that he had advised Godleske
for at least 10 years to leave his wife Marleen be­cause she “was
runnin’ around” and pur­portedly had a drinking problem. The relative
also stated that Godleske had brought his son to their house the day of
the slaying, and told his relatives that he was going to leave his son
with them forever.
“I’m going to leave the boy here,’ ” the relative quoted Godleske as
having said. “And I said, ‘How come?’ He said, ‘Because Marleen drives
me crazy and I shot her.’ I said, ‘You ought to turn yourself in to the
law.’ He said, ‘I’m going into the hills. I’m not going to jail,’ ”
the relative testified.
Another relative testified that “just about everybody in Estacada”
knew ab­out the extramarital affair Marleen was having, except for Gary
Godleske. The relative also told about the defendant’s possessiveness
towards his wife, that “the only person Gary confided in was Marleen
that I know of. Sometimes we even thought Marleen was a possession
because he was so protective of her.”
At the time of his wife’s death God­leske was suffering “from a
borderline personality that made it impossible for him to conform to the
law,” said defense attorney Mike Bailey to Judge Blanding during his
opening statements. Bailey also stated that during most of their
mar­riage Godleske’s wife had engaged in extramarital affairs. According
to Bailey’s statements, Godleske had not accepted the affairs and had
denied that they occurred until his wife purportedly told him, “I don’t
love you. I don’t want to be married to you,” said Bailey. “To the
defendant, Marleen Godleske was a virginal angel on a pedestal,” added
Bailey.
Bailey told how Godleske allegedly struck his wife with a rock but,
after noticing the blood, he shot her. Bailey told the judge that
Godleske had often -put wounded animals out of their mis­ery.” Bailey
told how Godleske had turned on the gas inside the mobile home after the
shooting, that Godleske then went into the woods with the intent to
commit suicide but, fearing that animals would eat his body, Godleske
returned to the mobile home and discovered the police there. “His whole
life was over. Marleen Godleske was his whole life,” said Bailey, who
also told the judge that Godleske’s alleged escape attempt from the
hospital after being captured was in fact an attempt at suicide by
running in front of a moving truck.
Godleske had time to fantasize about the things that would happen in
his life if his wife left him. Videotapes were played for the judge of
interviews between Godleske and the psychiatrist, and sobs from the
suspect could be heard as he spoke.
“I just started hitting her (with a rock),” Godleske stated on the
videotape. “I hit her as hard as I could. She woke up screaming. I
thought she would die. I tried to get as close as I could (with the
gun), so she wouldn’t suffer. I didn’t think about killing her. I just
did it. I didn’t want her out of my way. I wanted her with me.” Godleske
also said on the tapes that he shot their two dogs, made plans to burn
down the mobile home and to kill himself. He also spoke of returning
to his mobile home and finding the police there, of how he began
shooting at the sheriff’s deputies.
“I was shooting at cars because they were there,” Godleske said on a
videotape. “They shouldn’t have been there. I wanted to get back to my
wife. I didn’t know how much time had gone by. I didn’t know why the
cars were there.” Godleske was asked by the psychiatrist on the tape why
he had re­turned and Godleske replied, “So I could be with her when I
died.”
The next day Godleske’s defense attorneys presented videotaped
inter­views between Godleske and psychiat­rists made after his arrest. A
Portland psychiatrist, testified for the defense that Godleske was
“not capable of forming the intent to actually execute his wife.” He
testified that statements made by Godleske during interviews displayed a
child-like view of himself, illustrating that Godleske was not only
financially dependent on his wife, but was emo­tionally dependent as
well. The psychiatrist told the court that it was like­ly Godleske felt
rage when his wife told him she planned to leave him and, when the
victim passed out from drinking the morning she was killed,
The psychiatrist told the court that Godleske’s statements were an
”ex­pression of gross breakdown in reality testing. He was so involved
with this woman and so dependent upon her that it meant total
psychological annihilation” for the defendant. Under cross- examination
by Prosecutor Silver, the doctor testified that Godleske could not “be
classified as suffering from a bor­derline personality disorder,”
conflict­ing with defense attorney Mike Bailey’s claim that “once in a
while people who are borderline go south of the border and are
psychotic. This wound (caused by the blow from the rock) bleeds like the
dickens. This guy is whacked out. He thinks he’s killed her so he
shoots her. The guy’s crazy,” said Bailey.
A psychiatrist who testified for the state near the close of the
trial testified that Godleske wasn’t suffering from a mental disease or
defect at the time he shot his wife. “I have no doubt this man has
never been psychotic. His behavior was goal directed. He took the time
to think, deduct what his next step would be,” said the psychiatrist.
During closing arguments, Prosecutor Silver stated that if the court
found God­leske insane, “the court condones di­vorce by murder. Is the
end of a marriage sufficient reason to excuse an otherwise intentional
killing? Is divorce sufficient provocation for one spouse to kill
another?” he asked.
Following a half hour recess, Judge Blanding ruled that Gary Ray
Godleske was guilty of the murder of his wife Mar­leen. He was also
found guilty of attemp­ting to murder Sgt. Lowery, Deputy Shackelford
and the newspaper reporter and photographer. He was found guilty of
second-degree escape charges, and guilty of fourth-degree assault
charges stemming from the wounding of Detec­tive Frazell. Godleske was,
found not guilty of attempting to murder Frazell and not guilty of
first-degree assault against Sgt. Lowery.
On Monday, November 21st, Gary Godleske was sentenced to life in
prison for the murder of his wife Marleen. In addition to the life
sentence, Judge Blanding sentenced Godleske to max­imum terms of 20
years on each of the three convictions of attempted murder against Sgt.
Lowery and Deputy Douglas and the reporter and photographer — the
charges involving Godleske’s attempts to murder the reporter and
photographer were merged into one.
Judge Blanding also sentenced God­leske to serve up to five years in
prison for his escape from Willamette Falls Community Hospital, and one
year in the Clackamas County Jail on the assault conviction involving
the wounding of Detective Frazell. Blanding did not order the sentences
to be served consecutively or concurrently, leaving that decision with
the State Parole Board. “The length of incarceration should be
determined by the parole board,” he said.